Search form

Search

How Can Technology Improve Your HCAHPS Scores

Every hospital’s top priority is patient satisfaction, and the leaps in healthcare technology are helping improve the way patients and caregivers interact. Advancements in integrated solutions are bridging the gap between patient and physician which is boosting productivity, increasing efficiency, and improving HCAHPS scores across the board. As nurse managers and hospital executives know, HCAHPS are crucially important to maintaining a successful operation. From a competitive position, HCAHPS and patient satisfaction help secure new patients and attract quality physicians. But HCAHPS also help protect a hospital’s liability and secure future reimbursements for care. In fact, HCAHPS and patient perception account for 30 percent of a hospital’s annual update. So how can a hospital leverage technology to help improve the patient experience?

Patient Admittance

Workflow technology is improving the efficiency and timeliness of the patient admittance process. There is a lot of communication breakdown in the traditional workflow of admitting a patient in the admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) system to when the attending physician actually reviews the case. In between, patients spend a long time in the waiting room causing stress and uneasiness. Advances in smartphone technology can help automate this process through electronic notifications directly to physician’s personal electronic device. The ADT system can alert physician and attending staff about the recent admits and streamline the process of acquiring patient information and assessing the case – drastically cutting patient wait time.

Deliver Test Results

Test results are often a cause for great stress and anxiety for patients. Unfortunately, through traditional systems there is a lot that can delay the process of quickly delivering this patient information including communication failures over the phone or email, and manual data entry and information tracking. Hospitals are adopting new methods that allow mobile transfer of important lab results that increase patient safety and satisfaction. By automating the transfer of test results from labs directly to the physicians, hospitals and healthcare facilities and improving productivity and shaving the high costs of ineffective communication.

Nurse Calls

The speed at which patients receive immediate nurse attention for medication, treatment, or discomfort is directly correlated with their satisfaction of their care. There are areas of inefficient communication breaks when a patient requires immediate nurse action, including identifying the patient and their location, determining the need and course of action, and locating the appropriate nurse or physician. New nurse call technology is eliminating the incongruences in patient requests and streamlining essential information about the patients and their immediate needs, which is helping hospitals everywhere reduce redundant efforts and speeding up response times.

There is an appropriate communication solution for your staff and facility that will help improve your patient care and improve your HCAHPS scores. Whether it’s patient identity technology, dynamic rounding dashboards, real-time location systems, nurse call systems, or streamlined information sharing, there is a system available that tailors to your unique needs. Contact SWC today and we will help identify ways to improve patient satisfaction through integrated technology.